OD&D New toD&D 5thEd - Ftr>Eldritch Knight - questions, help, advice

[ElterAgo]

Playing this guy in the Dragon Heist Adventure League. Brand new to 5thEd and only 1 session so far with this PC.

Dragonborn, Bronze
Fighter level 1, protection fighting style, planning on eldritch knight
Align CG
Deity Mystra
Background Soldier
Str 17, Dex 10, Con 13, Int 14, Wisdom 12, Charisma 9
(took stat array though I am allowed to take point buy if it will work better)
Prof skills are athletics, history, perception, and intimidation.
Chainmail, Shield, Flail, Handaxe, Dagger

Level 4 take feat War Caster
Level 8 take 1 pt increase in both str and con
No particular thoughts on spells yet.

Comments, concerns, suggestions, advice?

 

[Leatherhead]

Advice:

Get some ranged weapons, Javelin use STR, which you have a bunch of. And you can never have enough rope.

I have not played Dragon Heist, but it is my understanding that the adventure is some kind of urban "bank robbery" scenario. Which would imply that you are going to need some stealth and/or schmoozing prowess. It's not that a party won't need some muscle, but the muscle should be able to wander around in a city somewhat inconspicuously. Going with intimidate isn't bad per-say, but you aren't going to be applying it with that low CHA.

 

[Prakriti]

Hello, and welcome. You might get more responses in the Character Builds & Optimization forum, or at the Giant in the Playground website. Demographics-wise, this forum tends to skew more toward DMs than players.

That said, your character looks well-optimized for level 1. And that History proficiency should come in very handy in a place like Waterdeep. If your DM is well-versed in Forgotten Realms lore, then he (and your character) might know a lot of good stuff about local factions, families, and history, so be sure to ask questions if something interests you.

Welcome again, and enjoy the game.

 

[S'mon]

With +4 History you definitely want to be asking for INT (History) checks! IME many GMs may not realise that a Fighter is a font of historical knowledge so you may need to do a lot of "With my knowledge of Waterdhavian History, do I recognise ...?"

If it were me I'd want to get my STR to 18 ASAP and leave War Caster for later - all the Eldritch Knights I know spend their time in melee & blow their spell slots on Shield. This is particularly powerful combined with your high AC and Protection fighting style - (a) you are very hard to hit (b) you make the guy beside you very hard to hit too!

 

[abs]

As a fighter, you get a feat/stat boost at 6th level. I take it you are a "defender" type of fighter. I would take the dueling fighting style, for extra damage, and take the Sentinel feat at sixth level. My reasoning is that I can perform better in locking down an opponent, consequently keeping it away from my allies, and still punish it with additional damage. That gives my reaction something to do, and I still achieve, at least with most DMs, the ultimate result of the protection fighting style, keeping allies from being attacked by bad people...

 

[Pauln6]

Although the default is Charisma, it is possible to intimidate using Strength e.g. by pinning someone to the wall while an ally does the talking although it is very circumstance specific and requires DM sign off.

It might also be possible to use magic to intimidate (or gain advantage against) ignorant folk, e.g. conjuring a minor image of a dagger at their throat in front of them although those with knowledge would see through such parlour tricks.

 

[clearstream]

Playing this guy in the Dragon Heist Adventure League. Brand new to 5thEd and only 1 session so far with this PC.

Dragonborn, Bronze
Fighter level 1, protection fighting style, planning on eldritch knight
Align CG
Deity Mystra
Background Soldier
Str 17, Dex 10, Con 13, Int 14, Wisdom 12, Charisma 9
(took stat array though I am allowed to take point buy if it will work better)
Prof skills are athletics, history, perception, and intimidation.
Chainmail, Shield, Flail, Handaxe, Dagger

Level 4 take feat War Caster
Level 8 take 1 pt increase in both str and con
No particular thoughts on spells yet.

Comments, concerns, suggestions, advice?

I've played an Eldritch Knight through tier 1 in Tales of the Yawning Portal.

I started out with some other style, but my DM let me switch to Defense after our first session. If we are talking about plain leverage on the narrative through combat, I think the main path for an EK is Defense style + Plate + Shield + Shield spell. This gives a base armor of 21, going to 26.

I think your stats are fine. FWIW I'd prioritise Constitution over Intelligence. Remember you get an ASI at 6th also: I would take the 1pt increase at 4th, and War Caster at 6th. The reason is that until you have 2nd and 3rd level spell slots, you don't need to run Concentration spells in many situations anyway.

 

[clearstream]

Playing this guy in the Dragon Heist Adventure League. Brand new to 5thEd and only 1 session so far with this PC.

Dragonborn, Bronze
Fighter level 1, protection fighting style, planning on eldritch knight
Align CG
Deity Mystra
Background Soldier
Str 17, Dex 10, Con 13, Int 14, Wisdom 12, Charisma 9
(took stat array though I am allowed to take point buy if it will work better)
Prof skills are athletics, history, perception, and intimidation.
Chainmail, Shield, Flail, Handaxe, Dagger

Level 4 take feat War Caster
Level 8 take 1 pt increase in both str and con
No particular thoughts on spells yet.

Comments, concerns, suggestions, advice?

See my post above. I missed one concern. I have found abilities like Protection and Sentinel problematic in play. They put the DM in a difficult position where they have to judge if a foe who is experienced in combat, and whose life depends on it, reasonably would attack the bard when they know that will trigger the knight's protection?! That's a concrete example of general conundrum. The DM can decide to roll for it, making protection half effective. Or they can always have the foe attack the knight, making protection useful in a sense, but then the knight would rather have defense! Or they can always attack the other character... which for me at least came to feel unsatisfying.

The other thing is the value of Defense is higher than it looks. +1 AC isn't much, right? However, it interacts with your spell slots by reducing the times you need to cast Shield, meaning that the spell becomes far more efficient. So if your AC is low, you need to cast Shield far more often than you can, so you're forced to not rely on it. If you push AC to the max, then you don't need Shield as often, and it becomes a real thing. You feel more able to protect other characters, than with Protection style... ironically.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

Looks fine. A handaxe is enough for ranged fighting. Especially when at level 3 you can resummon it in your hand after you have thrown it. An eldritch knight is the only class who can throw two weapons per round at level 5. You might get a few more handaxes then.
Your breath weapon is also a nice area attack which saves you a spell slot for the occasional thunderwave or burning hands (which our eldritch knights used to great effect in addition to the shield spell).
I second raising str and con first. You don't really need warcaster. You can always drop and resummon your weapon when you need the shield spell. With a shield in hand and protection fighting style you won't be able to make attacks of opportunity anyway. The people next to you can dish out damage if someone wants to flee, you just make sure that attacking you or the guy next to you are both bad options. (Shield or disadvantage)
The only sad thing is that you have uneven charisma but that allows you to take a feat that might raise it to 10 and gives more nice things (actor is great, as might be the feats from xanathar's guide. All three can prove quite useful in social situations.).
You might consider rotating dex, wis and charisma though. 13 charisma allows you to take inspiring leader and makes dragon fear more powerful. With heavy armor you won't miss dex too much. Dragon hide on the other hand will become worse though. You won't take 3 of these feats however.

 

[ElterAgo]

... You might get more responses in the Character Builds & Optimization forum ...

Where is that? I'm not seeing any subforums within the 5thEd forum.
{Never mind, I found it. It's not within 5thEd.}

I will consider defense instead of protection style. Not sure.

I never thought of the weapon bond replacing a lot of the early warcaster benefit. I will have to think more about that.

The starting equipment does give me 2 handaxes for throwing, I just forgot to list that I have 2 of them.

Intimidation wasn't really a choice. Just automatic with the soldier background.

Don't think I will switch scores to make charisma higher. Group already has 2 PC's with decent face skills.

Thanks for the advice folks!